Barbarians heart Sarah
I cannot beLIEVE how many pundits I like and admire (I’m looking at you, Charles Krauthammer) have got it wrong on Sarah Palin. Mark my words: she was a brilliant pick. You guys are overlooking one very important fact: I really, really like her.
Hear that? That fluttering sound? That’s the sound of ten thousand DC insiders’ eyeballs rolling in their sockets. “Really,” they harumph, “there ought to be some kind of aptitude test before we let just anybody vote.”
But, see, what you Beltway people don’t realize is, you’re freaks. Really, I love you to pieces — the pundits and politicians on my side, anyway — but you’re politics nerds. You give us (speaking in my capacity as honorary straight American here) the jim-jams.
I can’t even watch the Sunday talking head shows because you’re all like, “well, don’t forget what Ed Muskie said in the ’72 Iowa caucuses!” and everybody busts out laughing because somehow all you Poindexters know what that means. You’re like weird Al Gore zooming across the stage barking “Dingell/Norwood!” It’s enough to make mush-mouth patrician George Bush look like an ordinary guy.
It’s not just that you can reel off more politics off the top of your head than any sane person ought; it’s that you give off that creepy Rain Man vibe doing it.
So why do we read books by geeks like you? Why are you all we elect to office? Because that’s all that’s on offer.
So here comes Sarah Palin — who totally doesn’t make our freak-dar jingle-jangle-jingle — and we’re psyched. Vetting be damned; I already know Sarah Palin. I’ve known several of them.
Cute girl. Likeable. Smart. Did her homework. Partied a little, not too much. Hunted with her dad every deer season. Played on the varsity basketball team. Fierce competitor, but nice about it. Fell in love with a cute guy in High School. Got married and had a cute family. Underneath that healthy, happy, all-American façade is…a genuinely good and decent person. It happens. Honestly. That “quiet desperation” thing is mostly reserved for the arty types.
Plus — Alaska! Man, you’d have to be something as dim as a professional pundit to think Alaska is a liability. Alaska is a real life slice of the mythical Old West. I was in High School while they were building the pipeline and throwing money at people to move up there; we used to dream of going to Alaska. (One of my friends actually went and thought it was a bit of a shit-hole, but never mind — Alaska!)
So, yeah, Sarah Palin could disappoint me yet. But don’t count on it. And don’t think you’ll put anybody off by pointing out how much she’s not one of you sad Beltway twerps.
September 2, 2008 — 10:11 am
Comments: 8